Insane Erdogan; Saudies embarrassed US

Turks Are Wondering if Their President Is Insane

President Erdogan, who is supposed to be above politics, is up to his eyeballs in a campaign to win constitutional changes that give him unprecedented power. It’s less than four weeks to go before parliamentary elections in Turkey on June 7, and it looks like President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is panicking. Or worse.

A popular refrain among his political opponents, and on the street, is that Erdogan has lost his marbles and is driven by an insatiable appetite for power. Ever since he moved into a lavish 1,100-room palace in Ankara last year, Erdogan has been accused of succumbing to an out-of-control urge for grandeur. Kurdish politician Abdullah Zeydan says the president “thinks he is a sultan.” Meral Aksener, a nationalist politician and deputy speaker of parliament, claims Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was telling people behind closed doors that Erdogan “is out of his mind.”

“Obviously, there is panic,” said Yavuz Baydar, a respected journalist. Full story

There is no reason to wonder anymore. The wrong question is being asked; the right question would be how insane is this dude. Soon the Turkish Lira could make for a good investment. Once this loony bin is out, things should stabilize.

The Saudis just went nuclear on their Obama snub

President Barack Obama’s summit with Arab leaders doesn’t seem to be going as planned. First, King Salman of Saudi Arabia embarrassed the Obama administration when he backed out of the summit after the White House announced he was going to attend.The last-minute move was widely perceived as a deliberate snub, and the Saudis offered only a vague excuse for King Salman’s absence. Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz attended the talks in Salman’s place.

Obama then incorrectly introduced the deputy crown prince and misnamed the founder of the kingdom.Then came today’s big news: The New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries intend to match Iran’s nuclear capacity if the US reaches a deal that allows some aspects of the country’s nuclear program, including uranium enrichment and ballistic missiles research, to continue.

One unnamed Arab leader who is participating in the talks told the Times that Sunni Arab countries “can’t sit back and be nowhere as Iran [a Shiite regime] is allowed to retain much of its capability and amass its research.” Full Story

The term to remember is religious wars and Sunni and Shiites dislike each other so much that it makes the animosity Sunnis have towards other religions appear minor in nature. Violence is only going to worse in this region. A new arm’s race will start in the Middle East, and it is possible that at the height of this tension, an unholy alliance is formed between Shiites and Sunnis, with the intent of attacking Israel.